Slow start ends Ireland's hopes

The week long fears that the Irish coxless four crew were off the pace were confirmed as they faded out of contention after the first strokes of the first semi-final in Penrith.

The Irish rowers finished fifth in a time of six minutes 15.75 seconds, over 15 seconds behind the winning Australian boat and five seconds behind the USA.

It was a depressing conclusion to an Olympics at which the four expected to make a serious impression. From the first heat, however, it was apparent there was something amiss about the Irish effort and the crew were at a loss to explain their subdued performances. Rumours of weight difficulties had begun circulating, since denied by team manager Mick O'Callaghan.

"I think since we came to Australia, we saw that possibly we were too ambitious. Maybe we were not quite as good as we thought. I think Australia and France are where we expected them to be but we felt we'd be up there with them. Today they went as well as they could. I said to them after they came in that they had to look at it realistically. I could see nothing really wrong with what they were doing."

Except they were out of the picture from the early stages, again falling a fatal four seconds behind after the first 500 metres. It was a virtual re-enactment of the problems in the first heat.

"I think that's the weakness in that crew. We don't seem to be able to get away, we are giving away a length in the first 500. We have been working on it but the possibility is that that is as good as we are going. They are down a bit but now we have got to look forward to the B final."

It's hard, though, to imagine the crew will be able to raise any enthusiasm for the B final. The four came to Sydney confident of challenging for medals but once they found themselves in the repechage, it was evident that they had serious difficulties.

"And we just about got through the rep," admitted O'Callaghan. `We beat Chile by three seconds - our under-23 crew beat them by a second in Amsterdam not so long ago."

In a bid to re-ignite themselves, the crew readjusted the seating, with Neville Maxwell sitting at bow, Neal Byrne at two, Gearoid Towey at three and Tony O'Connor at stroke. It made precious little difference.

This defeat marks another bitter Olympic twist for O'Connor and Maxwell, who just missed out on bronze four years ago.